Joliet on alert for attacker in break-ins

Council approves $10,000 reward

Joliet police said Tuesday they are redoubling patrols and investigative efforts to catch a man who has broken into nearly two dozen houses since last summer, including a spree last weekend in which an 11-year-old girl was sexually assaulted as her relatives slept nearby.

The Joliet City Council voted Tuesday to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the cases.

Police believe the same man is responsible for 21 break-ins in Joliet, a few in Bolingbrook and possibly a handful in Chicago. During the break-ins, the man has masturbated in front of a sleeping woman or girl and sometimes touches a girl or woman.

But in the most serious incident, the man sexually assaulted a girl early Saturday who was spending the night at a relative's house in Joliet. She was sleeping in a bed with three younger siblings. Her 6-year-old brother awakened and witnessed the assault, but neither called out to relatives inside the house in the 300 block of South Water Street, said Fred Hayes, deputy chief of the Joliet Police Department.

In fact, the girl did not tell her parents about the assault until the next day, after she had left the city, police said.

Then early Sunday, a man whom police believe committed the earlier attack, entered the same house on Water Street in Joliet and exposed himself to an 8-year-old girl, police said. After that case was reported, relatives notified police of the previous sexual assault.

"We believe the delay in reporting was because she was traumatized," said Hayes, who said the older girl has been physically examined and has received counseling.

Also early Sunday, a man entered a home in the 1400 block of Demmond Street by moving an air-conditioning unit in a dining room window and began exposing himself and touching a sleeping 16-year-old girl. When she woke up and kicked the man in the face, he fled the house, said the girl's grandmother.

The man apparently disconnected the phone in the house, so the grandmother told another granddaughter to call 911 from a cellphone. In the meantime, the 16-year-old and another girl ran outside the house to search for the man to tell police his whereabouts once they arrived, she said.

The dispatcher who answered the call did not immediately send a squad car, leading the family to call a second time, the grandmother said. It took about 15 minutes for police to arrive, she said, and by that time, the man had disappeared, even though he had lingered in the neighborhood for a while.

"This man could have been caught Sunday morning," she said.

But Hayes disputes that account, saying that police handled the call appropriately.

Witness descriptions of the man are vague, Hayes said, but police are looking for an African-American man in his mid-20s, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing between 160 and 175 pounds. The man is described as having a dark complexion and possibly a beard, although he is often masked when inside homes.

Police said the man has not left any physical evidence at any of the scenes and may be wearing gloves.

Joliet police have increased patrols and added more detectives to the case, although Hayes declined to give specifics. Police are enlisting the help of the FBI to come up with a criminal profile and are going through the list of known sex offenders, he said.

Hayes emphasized that people must do a security check of their homes before they go to sleep at night, making sure all windows and doors are locked. And residents should notify police of any suspicious activity, even witnessing a suspicious person in the neighborhood, he said.

He believes the man is from Joliet because of his apparent knowledge of the area, and he seeks opportune targets because after some break-ins, police have found evidence of a foiled intrusion at a neighboring house, Hayes said.